Malachi and I

by J. J. McAvoy

  Reaching to take another piece of my toast I grabbed her arm. “If our pain is equal why should I have to give up my food?”

  She pouted and I pouted back mocking her which caused her to laugh. “Fine, keep the toast. Tomorrow I’m getting double though.”

  “Tomorrow?” I looked up at her.

  She stretched her back out and nodded. “Did you finish the book?”

  “Has anyone told you that you’re…” I paused.

  “Oh….” She grinned and pointed at me. “You were going to call me annoying but you remembered my past and stopped yourself, right? Ah! So you do have a heart!”

  Rising I took off my sweat pants. “Are you going to stay and watch too?”

  She waved me off. “I’m going, I’m going. Not that you’d have any effect on me anyway.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I like my men a little more…fit…and, you know, not currently in a perpetual epic love saga with some other mystery woman.

  “She isn’t a mystery. She’s your co-worker,” I said as I walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

  “No bloody way! Who is it, Malachi?”

  “Sorry I can’t hear you, a dictatorial woman is commanding that I eat, shave and shower.”

  “Don’t forget to go for a walk.”

  “Go away, Esther!” I hollered at the door rolling my eyes even though she couldn’t see me.

  “If you think I’m letting this go you don’t know me!” she yelled back.

  I didn’t know her. Though her personality reminded me of Alfred.

  “Give, keep giving, be dedicated even when you don’t have to,” I muttered to myself as I examined the brand new razor and toothbrush she’d bought and placed out on top of a brand new, deep green towel set.

  Both of them were…the only two people in my contact list. They were the only two who knew my secret…our secret.

  ESTHER

  “Athena? Piper? Mei-Ling?”

  “For the last time, I am not telling you!” he yelled at me as we walked.

  Ignoring him I tried to remember the names of my female co-workers…snapping my fingers I turned back to him. “Chioma, from sales.”

  He sighed. “Yes. Chioma, from sales. That’s her. My long lost love.”

  “It’s no fun when you give up.” I frowned as I stuck my hands into my vest pocket and inhaled the cool, fresh air.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re immature?”

  “Yep.” I paused turning back to him. “I tried growing up but no one told me how terrible it would be so I decided to stop aging after my twenty-third birthday.”

  I laughed as I hopped over the fallen moss covered tree and dusted off my hands. He hopped over it too though he did it more easily and gracefully than me which was kind of irritating. I mean yesterday he was hunched over in pain and now here he was leaping over things better than me.

  “How exactly do you plan to do that?” he asked as he bent down to tie my boots while I stood there in shock. “That’s been annoying me for the last ten minutes.”

  “Thank you…”

  “So your plan is to stay in your twenties?”

  I grinned and pointed at him.

  “What?”

  “You’ve lived nine hundred and ninety-nine times, right? Any chance you came across the fountain of youth in any of them?”

  He’d looked genuinely interested in my plan until I said it aloud, it was then that he turned away from me and continued walking. “You’re a lunatic.”

  “I’m a lunatic?” He couldn’t be serious. “You are the one who claims to be living—”

  “Claims? And here I thought you believed! You’re all talk, Ms. Noëlle.”

  I wanted to kick him in the back of his knees but I glared at the back of his head instead, before I realized something.

  “You don’t even know where we’re going, so why are you leading me?” I rushed to keep up with his pace but he stopped so suddenly that I nearly ran into him.

  Turning slightly, his blue eyes narrowed at me. “I thought we were just walking so you could talk my ears off.”

  “Nope we are taking a shortcut, come on.” I moved off the path and pushed the branches to the left and right of me carefully, while Mr. Giant fumbled through.

  “You just got here, how do you have shortcuts…?” His voice trailed off as he stood at the edge of the forest clearing, and there, under the protection of the towering green trees, was a magenta lake of flowers that was so thick you couldn’t see a single gap between them and so deep that they grew to my knees. It didn’t matter the season, or even the weather, the magenta flowers which carpeted the ground stood high, bright, and proud.

  “Esther?”

  Upon hearing my name, I looked up with a smile towards the old couple who were standing on the other side of the lake of flowers.

  “Mrs. Yamauchi!” I waved, watching as she turned and pushed her husband’s wheelchair towards the only break in the lake, a path she’d created so that she could take her husband in whenever she could. Turning to Malachi, who was now looking at them confused, I grabbed his arm and pulled him. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  Without a word he allowed me to drag him over. I prayed he wasn’t about to collapse again. Please…he needed this more than anyone. The path Mrs. Yamauchi had created through the flowers only ran from her side of the field towards the center, meaning that Malachi and I had to walk through the knee-high magenta flowers, sadly damaging and messing up the field as we did. Mr. Yamauchi sat quietly as she pushed him forward. His white face was wrinkled as much as hers, though he wore a few more age spots on his face and hands, which he kept folded in his lap. His pinstriped brown golf cap covered his silver-gray hair. Mrs. Yamauchi’s matching pair was on her head too, her salt and pepper hair pulled into a bun.

  Letting go of Malachi I clasped my hands together as I bowed in greeting. “Ohayō!”

  “Ohayō!” Mrs. Yamauchi laughed as she moved around her husband’s chair to give me a hug. She broke away from me after a few seconds to look at Malachi. “And hello to you, handsome.”

  I panicked hoping he wouldn’t be his normal rude self, but to my surprise he clasped his hands like I did and bowed. “Ohayō gozaimasu.”

  He knows Japanese? Most people I’d met who didn’t know the language either repeated what I said or said ‘Konnichiwa,’ even though that was more for saying good evening. Ohayō or Ohayō gozaimasu was for greeting people in the morning. She greeted him back, smiling kindly as she brought her husband closer towards us.

  “Malachi Lord, meet Kikuko and Kosuke Yamauchi, future legends and the oldest couple of Lieber Falls.”

  “Who are you calling old? Oshaberi.”

  Malachi snickered and I turned to glare at the traitor as he pretended to think it over. “Oshaberi? A chatterbox? It fits.”

  “No one asked you.”

  “Sorry, Oshaberi.” He smirked as he looked at them both. “It’s a pleasure to meet the future legends and sweetest couple of Lieber Falls.”

  “I like you.” She came over and hugged him which made Malachi stand as stiff as a board.

  Crouching down beside Mr. Yamauchi I gently placed my brown hands over his wrinkled ones telling him in English, “I need back up. They will gang up on me if you don’t come help.”

  He turned to face me, his black eyes were like dark caves. I could look in but I couldn’t see in.

  “Do I know you?” He spoke for the first time since we’d all met. But then he glanced up at Kikuko and Malachi asking again. “Do I know you all?”

  Kikuko squeezed his shoulder and said, “Yes. I know you. You know me too. Just wait, it will come back to you.”

  He returned his gaze once more to the flowers, and Kikuko, who was not the least bit phased, pulled out a thick, dark colored blanket from the backpack that hung off the chair.

  “I’ll—”

  Malachi took it from her. “Where do you want me to put it?”

>   “Right here is fine, thank you.”

  With a nod, he carefully put it down, ensuring that there wasn’t even a wrinkle...because apparently he could think of other people. It was apparently only me who didn’t matter.

  “Esther?”

  “Yes?” I looked back to her as she held out bento lunchbox for me. I stared at the clear containers. “No, you didn’t—”

  “Chopsticks or a fork?” She lifted them both, purposely cutting me off which meant she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  “Chopsticks please.” I gave in to accepting them and the bottle of water she handed me. “I hope you’re hungry, Malachi.”

  “Starving actually.” He walked towards her and accepted the lunchbox and chopsticks.

  “Esther, how can you let him starve?” Kikuko frowned at him as she gave him a bottle of water as well.

  My mouth dropped open. “What? I’m not his…” I trailed off and she noticed him snickering at me.

  “Nurse? Maid?” she asked, as she put a napkin around Mr. Yamauchi’s neck, and gave him a spoon along with his food.

  “I’m not his wife. Yet still I somehow ended up making him breakfast this morning.”

  “Somehow?” Malachi took off his shoes and left them at the edge of the blanket before he sat down. Which I would have given him credit for if he wasn’t currently picking on me. “So you don’t remember that no one asked you to barge into my room, force me out of bed and demand I eat this morning?”

  “I was asked. I was asked by my grandfather, remember? Can you believe it? Girls my age are getting giant teddy bears and twenty dozen roses. Me? I’m trying to keep a thirty-year-old man alive. Aigoo.” I sighed tiredly.

  “Thirty,” Mr. Yamauchi whispered and I immediately stopped talking to hear him. “Good age. Thirty. Standing on the cliff.”

  He nodded to himself as he spooned a tiny rice ball into his mouth whilst looking out at the flowers. “I think I’ve been here before.”

  Kikuko smiled as she took off her shoes, and sat on the blanket by his legs as he went back into his mental haze. I followed suit and removed my shoes and sat down as well. I wanted to ask her something but Malachi cut me off.

  “Why is thirty a good age if it’s on a cliff?”

  Kikuko took a deep breath and turned to me. “Can I tell him now?”

  “Please do.”

  “I’m guessing based on the four lunches for the four of us that this meeting isn’t a happenstance?” Malachi asked looking between us. “So what do you need to tell me?”

  Kikuko’s black eyes looked back at him. “Why Kosuke and I are the future legends of this town.”

  Giving her my full attention I eagerly waited for her to start. After all, when else would I get to see a real master rakugo? Long before theater, films, and even novels, there was rakugo—the art of storytelling. Everyone could tell a story, but very few people could become one. Rakugos could act the part of dozens of characters making you believe that each and every one was a separate individual contained in one being.

  Not anyone…but Kikuko Yamauchi.

  9. THE COMING LEGEND OF KOSUKE & KIKUKO YAMAUCHI

  MALACHI

  She sat on her knees and placed a small paper fan in front of her. We quietly waited, Esther and me, watching as she took off her hat, revealing her hair which was sliver and black, and placed it behind herself. When she looked up at us both she smiled, and when Kikuko smiled it spread across her entire face. Her eyes became small, and due to her age, she had wrinkles around her mouth but she wore them proudly.

  “Forgive me, it’s been so long since I did this.” She spoke softly as she took a deep breath, picked up her fan and started.

  “The girl was six and did not understand the fear around her…” She began squeezing the fan as if she were going to snap it in two. “Why her mother walked quickly, even in the daytime, clenching her hand, and yes her whole hand because the girl was small, the smallest of the Sato children, and as the only girl, her mother held her as if she feared they would never touch again.” She opened her fan and slightly fanned herself. Joyfully adding “A thought, a possibility, a chance that had never once crossed the little girl’s mind because she didn’t know America, even though that was where she was born, that was where she was raised, and where she was. America wasn’t just a place or a country, it was her. The land of the free and home of the brave was her. So she walked freely to her tutor’s home on the corner of Maple and Fifth Bank. She even stayed late some days, and because she was brave she didn’t fear the dark.”

  All of sudden she snapped the fan close gripping it with both hands. Her smile dropped and her eyes seemed dull now as her voice became stiff but not emotionless. Instead, it was filled with a mixture of confusion, pain, and sorrow.

  “She didn’t fear the dark so the monsters did not come in the dark. They didn’t come with claws, or razor-sharp teeth, or beady red eyes. Because they were not monsters, they were people. And though they wielded no claws, they still held a weapon in their hands—paper. Important paper. The paper told the small girl that she wasn’t American, she was Japanese and because of that she could no longer walk freely, and her father told her to never show the bravery in her heart because it would be mistaken for treason.

  “The small girl still did not understand, but followed the rest of her kind, she now had a kind and separated herself from the other kind, the kind that took them away from their house on Fifth Bank to their new home at Camp Bella Vista—called so because there were Italians there too. The Italians told the girl what her parents and siblings didn’t want to tell her; that America was at war, a world war, and they were fighting a particular kind. So they couldn’t be that kind anymore. Camp Bella Vista wasn’t a camp but a prison with a beautiful view.

  “The girl cried because she didn’t understand, she was both kinds, she wanted to be good for both kinds, but that was treason, and so every day, out by the fence, she cried even as the snow started to bury her those first weeks in March.”

  She hunched over as her body shivered and the more I looked at her, the less she seemed to be there until I blinked and I was looking at the small girl sitting in the snow by a fence sobbing so badly her breathing was nothing more than gasps, and when she managed to get enough air into her lungs, she cried even more.

  March 1942 - Camp Bella Vista, Montana.

  “How can you be crying?” A young boy towered over her. His black hair was wet with snow and his white ears were slowly turning bright red from the cold.

  The girl looked up at him and wiped her face. “I’m sad!”

  “I know, but how can you have any tears left?” he asked curiously as he stuck his round face directly in front of hers.

  “What?” She pulled her head back and stared at him.

  He kept staring at her. “You cried here yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before that. How do you have tears left?”

  “I drank the ocean! Leave me alone!” She pushed him away and stood up from her seat of snow as she marched angrily to another part of the barbed-wire fence.

  “You have snow on your butt!” he yelled after her.

  She jumped as if she’d been kicked and spun around to glare at him while simultaneously putting her hands behind her back. The boy laughed at her.

  “Bye, crybaby!”

  “I’m not a crybaby!”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Hey!” The both jumped at the sound of the officer’s voice. His black boots crunched the snow under it as he walked forward, his brown rifle resting on the shoulder of his olive brown uniform jacket. The boy ran over to the girl and took her hand.

  “Sorry!” he said quickly for the both them.

  The officer looked them over. “Where are your parents? Why are you both walking around back here?”

  “Because we want to,” the girl muttered and the boy stood in front of her.

  “Because we wanted to see the deer
.” He pointed through the fence, and even though the tree line was still a bit far, there was, in fact, a deer there. “We wanted it to come closer but she kept crying because she’s cold. So I’m going to take her home now.”

  He waited for the guard to nod them off before he took her hand and ran. He ran with her as fast as their small legs could take them but before they could get to the safety of the camp a rifle shot rang out behind them. He pushed her down thinking that it was them that the officer was shooting at, but as he looked over his shoulder he saw the guard and a few others heading towards the deer. Taking a deep breath he rose to his feet and smacked the girl on the back of her head.

  “Are you crazy?!”

  “Ouch!” She yelled back at him.

  “Don’t talk back to them.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” The boy looked at her like he didn’t even know where to begin and so she kept talking.

  “Why do I have to stop talking? Why do I have to be here? Why—”

  “Because life isn’t fair,” he told her as he crossed his arms in an attempt to make himself seem older than he was, but the feat was too daunting and so he sighed as he lowered his arms and scratched the back of his head. “That’s what my father says, he fought the first time the world was at war and he always says war isn’t fair to anyone, so it’s not fair that we’re here. But we can’t go around causing trouble because it isn’t fair that what we do will hurt someone else too. Your dad is sick, right? If you make them angry what if they don’t let the doctor see him?”

  She stopped moving as if he’d just shattered what little pride she’d had left.

  “You have to be strong for your father, Kikuko,” he said as he leaned over and dusted the snow off her.